Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris

The new Fondation Louis Vuitton reflects its Parisian
surrounds as well as 19th-century glass and garden
architecture.

It's been described as an iceberg, a fish and, most often, a glass
ship.

Like all great architecture, the new Fondation Louis Vuitton has
evoked a flurry of labels and strong emotions, though its
architect, Frank Gehry, aimed to inspire creative contemplation. "I
wanted to create a feeling that was warm and engaging, usually
absent from modern, minimalist architecture," he says.

One of a few private museums in France, the building was
commissioned and funded by Bernard Arnault, one of France's
wealthiest men, a long-time patron of the arts and the chairman of
luxury goods conglomerate LVMH. Arnault's cultural initiative,
which French reports put at a cost of about $135 million, aims to
support artists and enrich the nation's legacy of contemporary art,
alongside LVMH's existing artistic sponsorships.

Eleven exhibition galleries house a permanent collection,
including works from Arnault's personal collection, and temporary
exhibits with direct participation from artists. The inaugural
exhibition, open until 16 March, traces Gehry's vision and the
building's six-year construction.

A modular auditorium, which doubles as an exhibition space, will
host events from chamber music to fashion shows.

The building's 12 sails can be glimpsed above the treetops of the
Bois de Boulogne in Paris's 16th arrondissement, within the
18-hectare Jardin d'Acclimatation, the children's park opened by
Napoleon III in 1860. For Gehry, the tranquil site conjured images
of Marcel Proust and the life of Parisian flâneurs. "I was acutely
aware of the gravitas of the location so there was added pressure
to create something I've never done before," he said at the
building's opening in late October.

It's his first project in Paris since the Cinématèque Française,
completed in 1994.

It's easy to liken the monument to a glass iteration of the
Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, but that overlooks the
singular aesthetic and technological marvels of the 85-year-old
architect's chef d'oeuvre. Gehry designed the monument as an
assembly of blocks: white panels of high-performance concrete
wrapped in 12 sails comprising 3,600 translucent panels, moulded
and fired in a custom-built kiln in Italy. "You're never completely
inside and never completely outside," says Gehry of the building's
transparent nature. A mirroring effect reveals the structure's
bones from the exterior and the natural surroundings from the
interior. This is most apparent on four asymmetrical terraces with
sweeping panoramic city views - with La Défense business district
at one end, the Bois de Boulogne gardens at the other - and in Le
Frank, the museum's restaurant suffused with natural light.

Guided by the lightness of 19th-century glass and garden
architecture, and equipped with 21st-century technology, Gehry
conceived of the project as a vessel anchored in a cascading water
basin, which he hoped would express the perpetual movement of the
modern world.